The Light of Men

Intro

It is pretty cool to think that the first Christmas at URC fell on a Lord’s day and now we have been gathering as a church long enough to see it happen again. As we have spent time this past year learning about the Church and how it is that scripture directs what we do when we gather together we realize that there is nothing from the regulative principle that directs us in our worship that sets apart any time or season as any more special or sacred than any other. The command of Christ is simply to gather corporately for worship and the example laid out in sacred scripture is to do so on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, the day on which He rose triumphant over the grave. We don't add elements to our worship to memorialize this time because there is no command to do so in sacred scripture.

However, there is also a wonderful freedom within the regulative principle for us to come to worship our Lord and in doing so bring to our minds any number of the wonderful truths that we celebrate and honor about our God in these times together. We also see from the history of the church a marking out of various times and seasons to specifically remember and bring to mind central aspects of our Lord’s life and what it was that He accomplished in His coming into this world to deliver His people from the curse of Adam. In this light we happily join with countless saints throughout history who have celebrated the advent of our Lord into this weary world. We sing songs, we read scriptures, and we even now have the opportunity to spend some time together in passages of scripture that hold before us the glory and wonder of this moment when as we read in the book of John, “the Word became flesh.”

Several times over the years we have turned to the Gospel of John at Christmas. It is not that any of the other gospel accounts of the Lord’s coming are of lesser value but I just find such a richness in the way that John presents the theological realities that lie behind the accounts that we find in the other gospels, the marvelous nature of that event that took place as a humble couple chosen by God traveled to a distant town to be registered and in the course of that journey gave birth to the very Son of God and laid Him in a manger to be worshiped by lowly shepherds and later visited by kings. John, you might say, lights the theological flame that causes the story to glow in all of its glory like one of those back-lit Christmas candle holders.

JC Ryle says of John’s account that:

Expository Thoughts on John, Vol. 1 Notes. John 1:1–5

There is something here which nothing but the light of eternity will ever fully reveal.

Therefore we could likely spend every Christmas from now until eternity digging into this passage and never exhaust the depths of the glory and wonder that John packs into this first chapter of his gospel!

Our focus today will be on just one aspect of this passage from verse 4, the Light! But before we go there lets take a moment to pray.

PRAY & READ (John 1:1-5)

As we think on Christ and His advent this morning I want us to center our attention on the second reality of verse 4, the light of men. John is helping us to understand who this child was that was laid in that manger in Bethlehem.

We find that this child was the Word and that He was in the beginning with God, He is the creator of all things and conversely there is nothing that was made that was made without Him. All religions that try to make Christ a created and non-eternal being immediately fall short here as Jon clearly holds Christ before us as eternal and in fact He says the word was God, and unlike Jehovah’s Witnesses like to claim, there is no “a” in there, it is not Word was “a” God it is the Word was God!

Johns focus on Christ as the agent of creation within the Godhead then leads to verse 4 and his declaration that:

John 1:4 ESV

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Life

Now we do need to take up the first part of this verse before we move onto the light. John inexorably connects the two when he says that “the life was the light of men.” And so before we get to the light we must take up the life.

What does John mean by saying “In Him was life…?”

There are two main options that can be taken here. Because of the clear connections to creation that come before this verse some see the life here as the animating force for all of creation, that as the agent of creation the life that is imparted to all living creatures finds its source in the second person of the trinity. Others, noting the shifting focus to toward the Words role as the agent of salvation, think verse 12 :He gave the right to become children of God” think that the meaning of the life here in verse 4 is primarily spiritual, that the spiritual life imparted to the children of God is found here in this One through whom all things were made.

I don’t necessarily see the need to mark much of a distinction here. The truth is that in this verse we find a tremendously important truth about the Christ who is the Word of God and that is that this One shares in the divine life.

Secular humanist and material naturalists insist that the only thing that has existed forever is matter and energy, to say things like the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins once said, that “something can come from nothing” because he explains, well sort of, that nothing really isn't what we think it is. These people are stuck in a conundrum because they hate God and as Romans 1 tells us, seek to suppress what is plainly evident about God, and they do this impart by making absurd arguments like this one!

God’s self revelation in nature and also His special revelation in the pages of sacred scripture both proclaim that because there is a universe of created things and because there are living beings that fill this world that the source of all of this is likewise an eternally existent being that has life within Himself! The term for this is aseity, meaning that a being is not created but rather derives life from within itself and the only being in the universe that has this attribute is, as we learn in the catechism, the One living and true God. And here we find that this Word of God also shars this divine attribuet.

This does indeed mean that the life that was given to every living creature in creation came from this source, from Christ Himself. However as we glance farther down the passage and as we reflect on why it was that the Word was made flesh we also encounter the reality that when Adam fell all oh humanity fell with him and as we read again in the book of Romans:

English Standard Version Chapter 5

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned

Now we know that while all life now ends in physical death and this is certainly a result of the fall there is a deeper reality that all men are dead spiritually, as Paul tells us in Ephesians, we are dead in our trespasses and sins. But that God is able now to make us ALIVE together with Christ. Paul talks in 2 Corinthians 4 about the LIFE of Jesus being manifested in our mortal flesh.

The life giver in creation becomes the life giver in the new creation. This means that we don't need to make a distinction here and can actually see the transition in Johns thought as Christ as the giver of life continues to offer life now to those for whom He came to give His life.

Light of Men

This then leads us to the consideration of the Word as the light of men. John connects the Word as the source of life and tells us that the life was the light of men.

As we consider this fascinating aspect of the Word made flesh, of that wonderful baby in the manger, it might do us well to just consider light for a moment.

It doesn't take much more than a cursory reading of scripture to figure out that light is important. In fact even outside of scripture the theme of light vs. darkness is plainly evident in many world religions, mythologies, and literature.

Now we are of course most concerned with scripture and we see that as early as the third verse of the entire Bible we see light entering into the reality of the world.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good.

Light illuminates, without light there is just darkness, there is no life, there is no way for further creation. God speaks into this newly formed cosmos and in less than an instant brilliant light radiates throughout the expanse of all that He has made! I cant even imagine what that must have been like.

When we consider the interplay between light and darkness we realize that it is only light that has substance. Darkness, many have pointed out is merely the absence of light. Darkness does not have substance, you cant make a darkness switch. You can make a light switch, You can turn the light on and immediately a real tangible thing fills a room.

The interplay between light and darkness is amazing!

-Cave story

Light is one of the most powerful and essential things that exists in the world and how amazing is it then that God so created this thing called light to primarily reflect the truth about Himself.

I believe that God has so formed the world and the way that light functions in this world as a means of constantly displaying the reality of this verse before the world. Even a blind man has to appreciate this thing, even though he may be unable to see it he still owes his continued existence to light. We all therefore have this experience of light and what it does in our world and so we all can tangibly relate to what it is for Christ Himself to be light! God has woven this powerful symbol of who He is and how He works in the world into the very fabric of reality!

We see as the Biblical narrative develops that light is everywhere. God shows up before Moses in a brightly burning bush, He leads His people in a pillar of fire. He has lampstands placed in the places where He is worshiped.

These displays of God as light are then theologically connected to God’s leading and guiding His people as a light. He does this through His word which is said by David to be a “Lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path.” He promises to Himself be a light for both His people and also the gentile nations.

In the Psalms we read:

English Standard Version Psalm 27

The LORD is my light and my salvation;

whom shall I fear?

English Standard Version Psalm 36

For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light do we see light.

English Standard Version Psalm 43

Send out your light and your truth;

let them lead me;

let them bring me to your holy hill

and to your dwelling!

Isaiah tells us of God’s becoming a light not just for His own people but for the nations:

English Standard Version Chapter 42

I will give you as a covenant for the people,

a light for the nations,

English Standard Version Chapter 49

I will make you as a light for the nations,

that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

And so here as we read of the advent of our Lord into this world we read that He Himself is the embodiment of light. His life we read was the light of men.

When Adam fell mankind was plunged into darkness, spiritual darkness. When men are separated from God they are separated from the source of spiritual light, they have no way to find their way in this world, no way to find their meaning and purpose, no way to be who they were created to be, they are left to grope their way about in the darkness. Men may refuse to acknowledge this reality, they may think that they are actually walking in the light.

-Story of Dr. Brill and the “light”

Never the less, no matter what fancy philosophical systems men put in place, apart from God they are in darkness and we can see the abundant fruit of this around us today!

God though did not leave men alone in darkness. This is where the language of light that we have already seen comes from. God chose to act in grace and dispel His light to people, namely His chosen people throughout history.

As we have seen God ultimately would give them the light of His law which would enable them to walk with Him in ways that were pleasing to Him. God revealed to them who He was and who they were and what they were created to be and to do and He instructed them as to how to do this. God sent them light.

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

But God had also as we have seen promised that this light would grow even brighter, that the light He would send into the world would stretch to the ends of the earth and here now we see John showing us that this light was in the life of Jesus Christ. He came to be this light.

These descriptions of who Christ IS will lead to the light also showing what Christ DOES

God has baked into this world symbolic realities that reflect who He is!